


Shattered

by PhazonFire



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Depression, F/F, Grief/Mourning, Heartbreak, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Obscenely dark shit, Self-Harm, Suicide, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-16
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-16 07:36:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11824080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhazonFire/pseuds/PhazonFire
Summary: The only thing worse than death itself is being left behind.





	1. Broken Glass

**Author's Note:**

> Ruby's world comes to a stop.

It had been said that among humans, grief came in five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. The concept of grief was not foreign to the Crystal Gems as a whole, Rose’s untimely departure still a freshly opened wound healed only by time itself. The very presence of Steven, as much as they hated to admit it, stood as a stark reminder of how quickly the world could be turned upside-down, their small rebellious family torn to shreds. In the midst of agony, they leaned hard on one another, desperate for consolation and a reminder that they, too, were not alone in their suffering. 

It was in those times that Ruby fell in love with Sapphire, again and again, day after day as the two tiny gems held each other tightly as they sobbed in one another’s arms, grateful only for the opportunity to hold one another close. In those moments of grief, Sapphire had wiped away Ruby’s hot tears with slender, trembling fingers, and Ruby had petted Sapphire’s hair with a firm touch, a reminder that suffering was not to be done alone. The two leaned on each other for support, both as Garnet and as themselves, through the most agonizing early weeks of life sans Rose Quartz. Once they had even found themselves agreeing that surviving her demise would have been practically impossible without one another. In time, their concern and loving affirmation had eased the hearts of Pearl, Amethyst and even Greg, a symbol of love and unity in the face of unbearable pain. 

Ruby dreamt of these days, a solemn blur she considered neither a dream nor a nightmare, but a memory best left suppressed. She groaned, her muscles tense with pain as her senses vaguely returned to her, head resting against a soft, freshly-fluffed pillow she somewhat recognized as the one on Steven’s bed. Her fingers stung as she flexed them experimentally, recoiling at the feeling. Her gem ached, and with it came a lingering burn that could only be matched by the heat of fierce combat. To move freely was but a futile wish, and it took all of Ruby’s strength to merely turn her head. 

Perhaps the anguished wailing was her first indicator that something was horribly, horribly wrong. A frantic Pearl pacing in the background, trembling with each and every step as those grotesque cries of utter anguish floated past. Ruby had heard them once before, just after Rose had departed this world. This was how Pearl grieved. 

On a couch behind Pearl, Amethyst sat with a perfect stillness much unlike her usual demeanor. The small gem had tucked her head away between her legs, burrowing into herself as though seeking to hide her face from the outside world. She shuddered on occasion, shoulders heaving with the effort of holding in her sobs. Ruby had seen this behavior once before, as well. This, she recognized, was how Amethyst grieved. 

And just to her left, a weak smile tainted with a cascade of tears, two shaky hands clasping the gem on her hand with desperation. Steven’s body quaked, his streaming eyes betraying the quivering smile he fought through hell and high water to hold. “Ruby,” he whispered hoarsely, his voice cracking, “you’re alright. I’m so glad you’re okay.”

_Why wouldn’t I be?_ Ruby wondered to herself, noting the difficulty with which she had forming sentences aloud. Ignoring the sharp stinging in her fingers, she patted the blankets beside her hesitantly, feeling for a presence that wasn’t there. Ruby frowned, sounding out words quietly and cautiously enough to communicate without straining her throat. “Where’s...Sapphire?”

Steven’s smile dropped out of existence, replaced by a scrunched-up expression of pure suffering she had never seen cross the child’s face in all her years as his guardian. His mouth parted open slightly, hushed whimpers of anguish spilling out as he wiped futilely at his teary eyes. He hiccupped, unable to form words, only handing to her a small wooden box bound haphazardly in a blue ribbon. A gift, perhaps. Ruby raised an eyebrow as she carefully tugged on one end of the ribbon, watching as it unraveled and floated delicately down onto the bed. She was not a fan of opening presents on her own, but rather with Sapphire at her side to share her excitement. As she tenderly pried the lid open, a wave of dread unlike any she had ever experienced washed over her slowly, and her thoughts screeched to a halt, betrayed by her own eyes.

In the otherwise-unremarkable box sat five to six jagged, non-uniform fragments of what Ruby had first assumed to be glass. Stained glass, most likely, with a rich blue tint that Ruby had long ago internalized as her favorite color. The pieces flaked, glass slivers raining around the bed as she lifted one experimentally between two fingers. The glass was cold, and for a brief moment she wondered if the frosted glass may have actually been ice, although strangely colored. The texture of the fragments felt familiar, as though Ruby had touched their source many a time in the past. Her confusion only grew--she had no memory of coming into contact with any sort of glass structures recently, if not ever. A strange nostalgia pervaded her soul as she tenderly rolled the glass between her fingers, watching with a morbid fascination as they began to shed once more with each roll, sprinkling an icy cerulean dust onto the bedsheets. She looked at Steven once more, whose leaking eyes were now fixed squarely on her. The whole room, it seemed, had become eerily quiet--a collective breath being held by Pearl, Amethyst and Steven alike as they watched her inspect each glass piece with confusion. 

“Where’s Sapphire?” she asked once more, the sentence slightly more panicked than the first time she had inquired. Steven put one hand over his mouth, desperately trying to conceal any loose sobs that would completely crack what remained of his composure, bringing one steadily shaking index finger up to the box, aimed squarely at the glass pieces within. 

Ruby looked down into the box, then up at Steven. She peered around the room, first at Amethyst, and then Pearl, and back into the box. She looked up at Steven once more, and things only clicked as she dropped her gaze back into the box the third time. This wasn’t glass. This was a gem. _Was._

Ruby took one singular, deep breath, and screamed. 

All hell broke loose as Ruby started to wail, clutching feebly at the gem shards in the box, her entire body quaking with unmatched ferocity that made Steven sick to his stomach. Pearl’s cries resumed with increased fervor as she rushed to the child’s side, wrapping her arms around him and sobbing into the back of his shirt as he retched again and again onto the floor of his own bedroom, eyes wide with fear and shock. Amethyst growled, clawing at her knees as she further tucked herself into a ball, muttering anguished and disbelieving obscenities to herself just out of earshot of the gems. Ruby, however, could not tear her eyes away from the shards no matter how hard she tried, her vision blurring as lava-hot tears erupted, waterfalling down her cheeks before plopping gracefully onto the fragments within the box itself.

The soldier’s head throbbed mercilessly, the ache in her gem and her limbs uncomparable to the despair that ate away at her heart. Her ears rang, the room simultaneously unbearably loud with the symphony of her own screeching and deafeningly silent with the weight of the world. She could feel her throat tearing, ragged and raw as her vocal cords strained. Her thoughts melted into a single cry of agony, and her world grew dark and quiet as impossibly bright lights flashed behind her eyes, her breathing slowing to a stop as she lost consciousness.


	2. Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ruby contemplates if there's even a point to living without her beloved.

For hours, or even years, it seemed, she dreamt of Sapphire. She mentally traced every last facet of her gem, the cool sensation of the aristocrat’s palms against her own, the vivacious passion that bloomed between them with each and every fusion. She dreamt of that sense of wholeness and utter peace that came to settle in her heart as Garnet, the overwhelming presence of her other half merging into her own form of being. She dreamt of Sapphire’s smile, her voice, how she laughed, how she cried. Perhaps the calmest moments she would have for days to come came in the form of those flashes of imagery in her consciousness, those thoughts of her lover a constant tape on loop. 

She dreamt of how they’d met, how they’d defied their destinies hand-in-hand, how they’d aligned themselves with the rebels in hopes of defending their right to love. She dreamt of Rose’s passing, and with it, Steven’s birth, and the way they’d plotted to tell him of their love, of their very origins as a fusion. She dreamt of their encounters with Lapis Lazuli, Peridot, Jasper, Holly Blue Agate, their reunion with Bismuth, the terror they’d shared when faced with Blue Diamond once more. She dreamt of the Sardonyx incident, of the utter rage and disappointment they’d felt with Pearl, of the Keystone Motel. She dreamt of their disagreement, of the sorrow she’d felt so shortly after, of the sheer agony of being apart from Sapphire for so long, whether or not the time was relevant. 

Ruby dreamt of her regrets--of everything she’d left unsaid, and that which she would never get another chance to say.  
When she awoke, there was no Steven. No Pearl, and no Amethyst, either. Birds chirped happily outside of Steven’s bedroom window, and she slowly began to process the events of the past few hours. A seagull perched itself on the window ledge, Ruby’s eyes lazily following the bird as it sunned itself without a care in the world. Truly, the world would continue to turn, the day progressing without caution for any single event. As she’d heard once in a human proverb, time stopped for no man. It rang true for gems, as well, it seemed. Ruby wept. 

Her tears came softly, small droplets wetting the bed sheets as she cried. She sobbed, occasionally pausing for a rattling breath that she wished she’d never needed. The ferocity of her anguish from the night before was gone, replaced with a heartbroken sense of despair that weighed upon her soul like a boulder. She’d slept with the box of shards at her side, nestled comfortably against another pillow as a companion that both comforted her and drove her further into depression. She tentatively wound the blue ribbon back around the wooden box, tying it gently into a gorgeous bow with a feminine touch it had lacked previously, as though sealed in a hurry. Ruby ran her fingers along the bow, stroking it as she lamented. The soldier cried for what felt like hours, her heart breaking steadily with every tear that fell until it felt as crumbled and shattered as the gem shards within the box. 

\---

She later learned of the circumstances under which her life had been utterly torn to shreds from Steven himself, who struggled to retain his composure as he relayed the gallant tale of a failed gem recovery mission, a corrupted entity hellbent on shattering anything it laid its malicious eyes on. He spoke to her cautiously, as though hearing any mention of her beloved would drive her back into the red-hot agony she’d felt the night she’d come to her senses. A particularly violent fight had split Garnet apart, with Ruby taking the brunt of the damage. Her form destroyed, Steven relayed how Sapphire had sobbed, throwing herself over the red gem and feebly holding her hand up in a pleading gesture to the beast. Of course, this had ended the way Ruby had gradually come to terms with over the last 24 hours--a gruesome shattering, and Sapphire saving her life once more. How ironic, Ruby mused, that Sapphire had saved her from shattering _twice_ now, only to meet her own end herself. 

“We’re here for you. I know it feels like you’re by yourself, but Pearl and Amethyst have lost someone before. Dad, too. He knows what it’s like to lose someone you love more than anything. If you ever want to talk, we’re listening.” He smiled weakly, eyes watering with tears threatening to spill over. Ruby nodded, not a hint of emotion in her eyes. No one could know how it felt--Rose, after all, was Rose, and not Sapphire. However, Ruby felt for Steven--not only had he lost Sapphire as well, but Garnet. 

As Steven left Ruby to contemplate her own thoughts in bed, assorted emotions ran rampant. She’d be lying if she said she hadn’t at least considered exacting revenge on the corrupted gem that had killed Sapphire. She’d considered the philosophy of “an eye for an eye” justified, but cold-blooded murder, however deserving, wouldn’t bring Sapphire back into her arms. Briefly, she’d considered attempting to fuse with the shards that remained of Sapphire before quickly dismissing the idea as repulsive, making herself sick over the concept of forcing Sapphire to fuse against her will. 

What did it mean to shatter? What happened afterwards? Ruby knew the basics of shattering, that gem shards still retained their sentience, that bits of Sapphire still remained underneath that neatly-tied bow, perhaps lonely in their own right. However, this was not the Sapphire she knew and loved with all of her being--she never wanted to see those shards again. The thought of Sapphire, helpless, in pieces, and by all definitions, dead, thrust Ruby even further into her own depression. 

On that note, what did it mean to live a life without Sapphire? Perhaps they could meet once more in some other life, a star-crossed fusion bound across time and space by destiny. On her own, Ruby was nothing, or so she had told herself for years. She scratched at the gem on her hand, wincing as tiny pieces of shimmering red flaked away. Despite the pain, she ground her fingers harder into the gem, the physical pain a welcome relief from the emotional turmoil she was bound to. She relished each sharp jolt of pain, feeling one step closer to Sapphire with each scratch. Did it hurt to shatter? Was Sapphire in pain? It wasn’t fair that Ruby was the one left behind. 

She scratched at her gem with renewed determination, shutting her eyes tightly as she harmed herself. She wouldn’t be left behind. 

Not ever again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ehh screw it this gets one more chapter after this before I get depressed


End file.
